File Compression for Off-site Back-up

Anyone,

I am writting a prog that will take my SQL (.BAK) files and upload them via .NET (winsock).

I obviously need to compress these bad boys. Anyone suggest some strong programs to shrink these files down considerably? I currently use winzip 9 and a BAT file, this works ok, but i think there might be a more efficient/or better way of doing this.

Thanks for NE1s input.

John

7-Zip is the best for really compressing data (not music/movies).
http://www.7-zip.org/

But, your server on the other end would have to know how to decompress it. The only thing I can think of is use to export with phpMyAdmin to tar.gz (or zip) and upload that way.